Karen Armstrong

Karen Armstrong FRSL , is a British author and commentator who is the author of twelve books on comparative religion. A former Roman Catholic nun, she went from a conservative to a more liberal and mystical faith. Armstrong first rose to prominence in 1993 with her book, A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, an international best seller that is now required reading in many theology courses. Her work focuses on commonalities of the major religions, such as the importance, in many, of compassion or "The Golden Rule". Armstrong received the $100,000 TED Prize... in February 2008. She used that occasion to call for the creation of a Charter for Compassion, which was unveiled the following year. Armstrong was born at Wildmoor, Worcestershire, into a family of Irish extraction who, after her birth, moved to Bromsgrove and later to Birmingham. In 1962, while still in her teens, she became a nun in the Society of the Holy Child Jesus, a teaching order, in which she remained for seven years. Once she had advanced from postulant and novice to professed nun, she enrolled in St Anne's College, Oxford, to study English.
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